Psi Hunt

by Kurland, Michael

  “It’s the usual subconscious bicranial phobia. Everyone goes through a phase where they’re afraid they’re growing a second head. That’s what’s known as synchronicity.”

  Leah smiled and listened. “Hello, there,” the man in line behind her boomed. “Are you on straight-wire?” He had a rigid, eight-tooth smile, and a curious blankness about the eyes. Leah acted as though she hadn’t heard him, and he as though he hadn’t expected her to. He turned to the girl behind him. “Hello, there,” he boomed. “Have you started process?”

  “Hello, there,” the girl responded. “I’m in gamma-level process. Are you in straight-wire?”

  His smile flickered for a moment, and then refroze. “Hello, there. I’ve just started straight-wire. I’m from the Denver Brood. We all came down.”

  “Truth in Lassama,” the girl said.

  “Friendship and love in Lassama,” the man said earnestly.

  “Love in Lassama,” the girl replied. She unobtrusively held out her hand. “You must be a Taurus.”

  He took her hand. “Leo, with Cancer rising.”

  “Of course.”

  Leah bought her ticket and followed the tide over to the people movers which provided direct transport to the level, section, and row her seat was in. She slapped her ticket onto a reader at the turnstile, and it whirred and spat a colored disk at her. By shape, color, and number she found the four-passenger people-movercar, already occupied by three impatient, smiling sib. She sat and dropped her disk into the taker, and the car came alive, sealed its door, and started out. Looking at the array of teeth before her, and hoping that none of them would ask her anything, Leah was beginning to think that this wouldn’t be as funny as she had expected. It might not even be pleasant.

  The car skipped tracks and hopped bars and paused and darted left and rose rapidly and smoothly and then stopped and hummed. Then it chuckled, spun ninety degrees, and dropped and twisted; paused for a moment while something passed it and hurried forward; zagged to the side, and stopped.

  The door opened. Thank you, the car said. Please take all your belongings.

  The seats were up a ramp and out. A gray-walled tube ending in glare, and there they were: row after row, aisle after aisle, section after section, acre after acre, of folding plastic seats. After every tenth seat in every third row (staggered two to the left) was a three-foot metal pipe with a small, flat platform atop; the largest slaved holo system in the world. Everything about New Hollywood Bowl was impressive. Its rain gutters formed a larger sewer system than many cities. Its emergency clinic was larger than many hospitals.

  Leah found her seat and settled into it. The Bowl was rapidly filling, and the lines of people taking seats showed no sign of slacking. She took out her collapsible opera glasses, opened them, and examined everything in sight.

  Welcome!

  She focused on the stage. It was bare. The holo was still off, but the show had started. The loudspeaker system was carefully controlled so that each listener heard a normally-pitched voice without an echo.

  The Los Angeles Brood of the Sibhood of Scientific Karma and the seven Associated Broods of Southern California welcome all of you; straight-wire, in process, or ignorant, to the New Hollywood Bowl.

  The last people were straggling in and taking their seats; and eight hundred thousand heads, in rows and files like a vast garden of cabbages, faced the distant stage.

  A man strode forward to the center of the stage, and silence fell on the Bowl. The holo stages snapped on with a medium shot of the man. I am the Disciple Fafner, his sonorous voice boomed. The Prophet Lassama will begin his lecture in the blink of the cosmic eye. Meanwhile, the symbolic grape is being brought to each of you. Drink of it and ponder the following conundrum: Why is a mouse when it spins? Sip of it and imagine yourself three feet above your head. Float there and watch your superid dissolve. Those of you still in process, do not attempt this exteriorization for longer than the time measured by the span of your grasp. He bowed to his audience.

  Two men came walking down the clear aisle two rows in front of Leah. They pushed a cart full of little paper cups, which were being passed out to everyone. In a remarkably short time they were past, and everyone around was cupped. An example of remarkable efficiency, Leah thought, sipping, that over eight hundred thousand people could be serviced so quickly. There’s nothing like a fanatical religion for organization. The beverage turned out to be unfermented grape juice, which was a slight disappointment. At least it was cool and tart.

  The diadem of emotions, quasar-hot

  Leah looked up. The Prophet Lassama had appeared in center stage, and was beginning without preamble. The holo showed him as a white-haired man, arms spread out, deep red robes billowing in the slight breeze, the sincere honest expression of a good used-car salesman ingrained on his face. In a direct view of the distant stage he looked like a bloated drop of blood.

  Flashes DNA-like on the molecules of my love.

  I have rode the planets—felt their

  Heat between my thighs.

  I’m a larger size.

  Realize an airless moon-bubble

  Shining in the Helios of the sun.

  Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bum.

  We killed the dinosaurs in our lust;

  And blew up the planet Mu, the fifth planet.

  And forgot. Racial amnesia.

  I admit my guilt. I remember. It is of my karma.

  How it was in the youth of the Universe.

  There was a powerful, compelling quality to the man on the stage. Leah felt her critical faculties crumbling before the onslaught of this projected prophet and his inane verse. A dull, throbbing noise provided a beat that the recitation weaved in and out of. Leah concentrated on it for a second and realized that she was hearing eight hundred thousand people subvocalizing yes—yes—yes—yes.

  I have felt the strength of the bond between the atoms

  I have held eternal time between the stars.

  I am you.

  (yes—yes—yes)

  Something in the back of Leah’s brain commented sarcastically about the ego of this man who had more l’s than a peacock, but her forebrain paid no attention. Lassama had grown until he was larger than the stage. Dwarfing the near-million people in the Bowl, he stared down at them with infinite compassion and recited his lines of hidden wisdom. The words formed Gothic patterns as they dripped from his lips and these became building-blocks of the master plan of the Universe, so clear and almost understandable. With a little more work, with a little more time, with a little more faith in Lassama and the Sibhood of Scientific Karma, one could certainly master the knowledge that enabled select men in every generation to secretly rule the world for the good of mankind.

  WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU? the back of Leah’s brain demanded. She paid it no attention.

  With the strength of a hydrogen bond

  I interact between the atoms of chaos

  And bring the lemma to its watering hole.

  He was looking directly at her, from his giant presence on the stage and from each of the holos. His intellect encompassed her, and his compassion soothed her. WHAT INTELLECT? WHAT COMPASSION? WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOU?

  She was one with the crowd, their voice was her voice, their thoughts were her thoughts, their love was her love; and the Universe was becoming clear to her. Truth, beauty, love, and the Prophet Lassama, were all facets of the same gemlike quality that had built the stars with its vibrations.

  WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? YOU’VE BEEN DRUGGED. I’VE BEEN DRUGGED. BUT THOSE THOUGHTS—THEY’RE NOT EVEN MINE.

  Hello, a voice said.

  “Hello.” Leah looked around. Nobody was looking at her—except the Prophet, who was looking at everyone.

  You can hear me, the voice went on.

  “I can hear you,” Leah affirmed. No one had spoken, the voice was only in her head. And her response had been entirely mental. And involuntary; she had no desire to answer the m
ental prod, at least until she found out who was prodding, but it was like the knee-reflex; he poked and she kicked. (He? She? The mental words had been strangely sexless, just sort of infinitely tired and not caring.)

  Look at the ground! the telepathic presence commanded. Look down!

  Leah’s gaze flickered involuntarily to her feet, even as she considered this command/request. Nothing was down there but a concrete-slab floor, and seat posts, and a number stenciled into the concrete: AKT-15/235/+

  The seat number? Now transferred from her brain to the inquiring mind. Very inconsiderate of the Bowl to print the seat numbers at the foot of every seat. But who would have thought of concealing that information so that a telepath couldn’t tell where you were sitting? Leah knew, without question, that whoever was in mind-to-mind communication with her wasn’t doing it for her good. She wasn’t sure how she knew, it was something underlying the message. But the “voice” hadn’t seemed either evil or good. Disinterested, perhaps.

  She had better leave the seat. And go somewhere without thinking about where she was going? And go somewhere with her eyes closed? Difficult and unlikely of success. Just go somewhere with a lot of people around. People not from the Sibhood of Scientific Karma. Somewhere in the downramp area there should be a security section, staffed by the Bowl police. What could she tell them without sounding silly? What difference did it make how silly she sounded, if she would get out of there safely. She wished Addison were there.

  In the multivalued logic of the system of our soul

  Truth.

  Travel the path with I, learn the readout

  The arithmetic of the near universe.

  Leah stood up and edged her way along the row of seats. Two men were waiting for her when she reached the aisle. They took her arms and propelled her toward the ramp. Help me! her still-alert consciousness cried out silently, while her drugged and hypnotized body smiled and walked placidly down the aisle to the ramp.

  They took her backstage to a small room and sat her down and sprayed a lilac-scented spray under her left ear, and she tasted lilac and she couldn’t move.

  Time passed, and the grape-drug faded and her brain was whole again, and she knew what was happening, and she could think and plan, and she couldn’t move.

  Two more people—girls—were brought into the little room and sat down and smiled and did not move.

  After a while the murmur of sounds from outside grew louder, and then died down, and then stopped. A man came into the room and, ignoring the three catatonic girls, sat at the desk and began running figures on a computer terminal. A second man came in, gathered up the girls’ pocketbooks and, purses and went away. Time passed slowly against the pattern of Leah’s racing thoughts. Why me? she demanded, impotently, time and again. To get back at Addison and Astral Emprise? But how could they know who I am? Why a telepathic contact? She examined the other two girls, who silently watched her, and tried to determine what they had in common. They were all drugged with the lilac-scent that separated mind from body, but that seemed rather an effect than a cause. They were all three short and slim. Someone, Leah thought desperately, is collecting midgets. Maybe they’ll throw me back as oversized.

  Hello.

  There again. Telepathic contact. But this was a different voice-feel. It was one of the two girls opposite her. Which? She could see them both clearly, but she couldn’t tell. They both stared vacantly into space as she was doing.

  Hello. The word pushed through again, and Leah got a brief feel-glimpse of the controlled hysteria behind it. She realized that she was close to that edge herself, and spent a moment in the well-learned mental exercise of concentrating her spirit, her ki, for her inner serenity against all odds; a teaching of the weekly aikido class that Addison Friendly called their Sunday School for Atheists.

  Hold on, she sent back, keep control! She tried to radiate calm and reassurance. Then she realized what she had just done. Projective telepathy! When coming down from the silver ice in that Chinaman’s warehouse she had read others’ thoughts. In the Bowl she had instinctively responded to a well-placed probe, also under some drug. But just now she had purposely projected her thought to another. Had she? Did you hear me? she asked silently.

  Yes. Thank you. I was trying not to panic, but it is difficult. Calmer now. Undertones of self-annoyance, self-dislike. When I was touched in the Bowl during that obscene dry-hump orgy, I answered without thinking. Then they grabbed me. I figured they were grabbing telepaths. I tried to touch that one, but she’s hysterical under that smiling face. Won’t let anyone in. Then I tried you and couldn’t read you and you wouldn’t answer.

  That’s it, of course! Leah thought. I heard him, and I answered him and they came for me. They’re not collecting midgets, they’re collecting telepaths! And I’m one. Only a telepath could have heard him.

  Of course, the girl projected. What did you think?

  Leah was startled for a moment at having her thought read, and then realized that she had projected it. She’d have to be careful. I’m new at this, she sent. I assumed that he, or she, or whoever, could read my answering thought because he was a telepath.

  True. It’s your hearing his question that makes you one.

  Ah! Of course. Are there many people like us? By the way, which one are you?

  I’m the slim, petite, sexy one. As in: I am slim, petite, and sexy; you are skinny, short and cute; she is an undernourished, flat-chested, nymphomaniac. Leah felt the accompanying mental giggle (emotion: spontaneous/happy/funny), and shared it and returned it, reinforcing the feeling. In a moment the two outwardly frozen girls were mentally drowning in a feedback wave of pure joyful release. It shut off all the senses, as a roaring filled the ears, and the eyes were red with flashes, and the—

  s t o p!

  F o r g o d’ s s a k e ! !—

  Terror closed her mind, shut the portals, froze synapses, and washed over her like a physical thing. She was alone, her heart beating wildly, her pupils dilated, and her skin prickly with sudden itching.

  The wave of terror set off a conditioned response—a trained reaction, if you prefer—and she was into the third of five calming, focusing exercises before conscious thought caught up. She finished the exercises and, calmly and gently, extended her ki (spirit/togetherness/sense of being) in a manner not mentioned by her aikido instructors.

  Hello again.

  The girl paused before replying, and Leah could sense a gathering of shattered psyche in the hesitation. Wow!

  Does that happen often?

  That, thank God, was the first time.

  I think that, beneath this calm exterior, there lurks a mood of wild hysteria. We will not panic!

  We already have. We shall attempt to do better. I am on your right: could you tell yet?

  No, Leah admitted. She looked over her companion-in-fear with interest. The girl was young and pretty, possibly beautiful when her quick, eager mind controlled the slack body. She had a good figure, almost modestly covered by a calf-length, slitted rainbow skirt and a sheer, puff-sleeve, high-neck blouse; both of a “glimpse” fabric, the ultimate in sophisticated see-through. She was well groomed, and shod in silglass Cinderella slippers. Money. Your people will miss you.

  My mother brought me here. She’s in straight-wire and wants me to join. They’ll tell her I did, and I’m getting special instruction. They’ll probably make her pay for it.

  You’re entirely too young to be so cynical. Isn’t your mother—?

  No. She’s convinced that she’s a sensitive, but she’s not telepathic. My, how she’d love to be, though. She’s ever leaning across the table at someone and saying, “I can see that you have been deeply hurt, and that you have a sensitive soul—sensitive,” or some such universal tripe. Have you ever taken silver ice?

  Yes, Once.

  Then that’s what sensitized you. And the dose in the grape drink brought it out. Welcome to the club.

  Are there many others?

  No. A very
flat no. The crowd I grew up with all tried silver ice. Hell, we all tried everything from group sex to piezobiotic cooking. I’m the only telepath. I’ve met three others in the course of my life. Or, in the last eight years that I’ve known I was telepathic.

  That must mean there are very few, considering the number of people you come into contact with in eight years. Just walking down the street, you must pass—

  Oops! No, it doesn’t work like that. It’s like talking to someone. You have to sort of aim at the person in order to hear them. About ten percent you just can’t hear. Other telepaths you can’t hear, but they can hear you if you sort of open up. And even better if you aim the thought—what we’re doing now.

  What about the girl next to you?

  She’s broadcasting like a used-car salesman. Can’t you hear her?

  Leah turned her attention to the girl on the left. It was like refocusing a critical lens. The girl she had been sharing with faded out, and the other girl came in. Leah turned from a searchlight to a forest fire.

  —out! Get out! Get away from me! What do you think you’re doing? Monkeys, all of you. And you haven’t even washed your hands. Or your tails! You think you—don’t you dare! Apes. All men are the same—defile the mind. The last pure portal. Help! Can’t anyone help me? Can’t! Anyone! Help! Me! Keep them away from me! They know what I’m thinking. No one must know what I’m thinking! Oh, God, God, God!—I can’t move. I know why they’ve done that. Well I won’t show any emotion. They’ll never have that satisfaction. But they know what I’m thinking! They mustn’t know—Help!!

  Leah tried sending a calming thought: soothing words and friendly tones. The girl didn’t notice. Her thoughts seemed to spiral inward on themselves, patterns reinforcing and stabilizing each other like the breastwork of a mental dike, preserving inward integrity. The cry for help was not meant to be answered.

  Leah pulled away from the girl and switched her attention back to the other girl. Catatonia?

  I don’t think so. It’s a mental defense against a very real attack. I don’t know how effective it is, but it sure keeps me out.